


Richie Tozier

by queermccoy



Series: Spotify Year End 2019 [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alcohol, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, POV Richie Tozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21739723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queermccoy/pseuds/queermccoy
Summary: Looking at Eddie is like finding a hornet’s nest in the woods. Richie did that when he was a kid, went looking for trouble and poked at it with a stick when he found it. Sometimes, he’d get stung and sometimes he’d spend hours looking at the intricate tunnels and wispy, crape paper layers cracked apart on the forest floor.They’re all laughing around the dinner table, sharing stories and Richie is talking to everyone, but he keeps glancing over at Eddie, who is posturing and bustling and Richie can’t help himself. He picks up a stick.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Steve Covall/Richie Tozier
Series: Spotify Year End 2019 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564588
Comments: 11
Kudos: 82





	Richie Tozier

**Author's Note:**

> For @rancidtozier who wanted #88 from my Spotify year end review with a reddie pairing. I am just as shocked and delighted as anyone else that the my 88th most played song of 2019 is Richie Tozier by Ok Otter? Stunning. This is hella angstier than I had originally intended, but I feel like I'm really Working Though my Richie feelings. Some of this is based in miniseries canon, some in the 2010 script.

Richie Tozier stands next to a reverberating gong, hands in his pockets. He says something dumb, has everyone’s attention. They all look exasperated but fond, like they used to. His fingers curl into his palms, digging into this thighs. 

Eddie is standing by the fish tank across the room, small and swimming in his ugly jacket. He got old, but so did Richie. He looks so intense, so full of barely restrained energy and Richie remembers the chopping motion he used to make with his hands when he was worked up about something and he can tell that he still does it. He knows it in his bones the way he knows why his stomach feels like it’s on the floor by his feet. Eddie grew into the kind of man who stands with his hands on his hips and asks to see the manager. Richie wants to see it. The skin under his eyes aches and shoulders make camp up by his ears. 

Looking at Eddie is like finding a hornet’s nest in the woods. Richie did that when he was a kid, went looking for trouble and poked at it with a stick when he found it. Sometimes, he’d get stung and sometimes he’d spend hours looking at the intricate tunnels and wispy, crape paper layers cracked apart on the forest floor.

They’re all laughing around the dinner table, sharing stories and Richie is talking to everyone, but he keeps glancing over at Eddie, who is posturing and bustling and Richie can’t help himself. He picks up a stick.

**

At the Townhouse, Richie drinks and drinks and tells a couple of jokes. Eventually, Bill goes to bed. Bev goes to bed. Ben goes to bed. Mike is asleep on the couch, between the bar and the entryway. Eddie is sitting on his stool with his head pillowed in his arms, basically laying down on the bar. He’s still awake, but barely. His eyes are closed. 

Richie’s pretty drunk, and he’s been watching Eddie’s eyelashes flutter against his cheeks. They’re still freckled, but lined differently than he remembers. He remembers things now, remembers being a kid and staring for hours at Eddie’s freckles and eyelashes and cheekbones. 

He remembers the gagging and the wheezing and smiles a little to himself. Eddie was- Eddie is- Different from anyone he’s ever known and it feels like a nightmare to be back here looking at the boy who grew into this man. 

Eddie casts light into the shadows of Richie’s brain, makes him understand all the bossy boys, the passionate men, the scrunched noses, all the time he spent following guys with neat hair who wore soft colors. Steve, his manager, has always said that he has a type and he didn’t think he did, but maybe he does. Steve and Richie have been together, as much as Richie can be with anyone when thinking about touching a man while he’s sober makes him want to crawl into the earth and die, for almost eight years. He’s not Eddie though.

Audra’s no Bev either. Richie was going to make a joke about that, because he has met Big Bill’s beautiful wife, a couple of times actually, and even her mouth is the same shape as Bev’s. It’s such low hanging fruit, and he is dying to make those jokes, but. Glass houses. 

Eddie peaks through his lashes at Richie, catches him staring. They’re looking at each other. It’s soft but buzzes and pulls at something in Richie’s gut. He feels seen, in a way he isn’t used to. 

He blinks first, because of course he does. He’s all bark and no bite, always has been. He wonders if Eddie would miss him if he died. If the Eddie he knew as a boy would have missed him if he’d died then, his missing posters hung up around the neighborhood like wallpaper. He thinks Eddie will look nice for his funeral, if he has time to go. 

**

There’s an axe in Bowers’s head, and Richie put it there. He made a joke, then he threw up. He’s standing in the corner of the library when Eddie walks in. 

“Eddie, what?” Richie asks, gesturing to his own face. His throat is raw and he feels bile rising again at the sight of Eddie with a bandage slapped against his cheek. His freckled cheek. 

“Bowers was in my bathroom,” Eddie says, like that explains it. He guesses it does. 

“I killed him.” Richie gags, and doesn’t look at the body. Eddie does, and Richie looks at Eddie. He’s standing with his hands on his hips, and it’s everything Richie thought it would be. He should look like shit, should look like Richie feels, but he’s vibrating. He’s shining, standing over Bowers’s body, and Richie can see just how white his knuckles are. They’re curled into fists at his hips. He is strong and Richie’s heart is full and his skin feels too thin. He feels like he’ll crack right open and everything will come spilling out. 

Eddie turns to him, touches his shoulder. He has to reach up, because even stooped over with emotion, Richie is so much taller than him. He can’t think about that though, not right now. Not ever, maybe, since he’s not drunk anymore. Leaning into Eddie’s touch isn’t a choice he makes, he just does it. 

The hand is small and warm and hurts, almost, with how much Richie likes it. 

“It’s okay,” Eddie says. Richie laughs, hollow and tight. He’s aiming for light and breezy but misses it by a mile. 

He says, eyes on Eddie’s bandage, “I bet he’s got a splitting headache.” He gestures to the axe, which is wet with blood, some brain matter seeping out of the cracks in Bowers’s skull. “You got an Advil in your fanny pack?”

Eddie grips his shoulder, hard. “I don’t have-!” he sputters. “You don’t have to-” Eddie squeezes before turning away, staring down at the dead man on the floor. “You don’t have to do that, right now.” 

Richie sags, like a wet dish cloth fallen to the floor. He nods, silent, and stuffs his hands in his pockets because he doesn’t know what he’d do with them otherwise. There isn’t any blood on him but he can feel it there anyway, on his hands.

Richie could never regret saving Mike’s life. He could never, ever think twice about saving his friend. Knowing that Bowers hurt Eddie too makes Richie’s blood boil, and he kind of wants Bowers to get up so he can sink an axe into his skull a second time. It scares him, the want rolling down his spine like sweat.

He has to turn away from Eddie, from how much he wants to kiss the frown lines on his forehead. 

He thinks, suddenly, of werewolves.

**Author's Note:**

> [Find me](https://queermccoy.carrd.co/) on the internet or just [send me](https://queermccoy.tumblr.com/ask) an ask with a number (1-100) and an IT pairing and I'll whip up a fic based on the song that corresponds with that number in my Year End Review.


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